On Raiding – Valithria HM had our number last night. We got close! (98%) But couldn’t quite shore it up. About the time our portal team got everything together, the rest of the raid was pittering down, not that I can blame them; I do believe the non-portal portion of the encounter is very tedious. We pushed her for our full Sunday raid night, which in hindsight perhaps was a mistake. But it was hard to be so damn close and not keep going…and I think most people were of the same mind set.

Personally, I did terrible. I can’t quite put my finger on why, but I think I was too concerned about the raid. I am capable of running around 24-26k HPS…and last night averaged only about 12k. I need to shut off my leader, must save everyone, instincts and just heal the damn dragon. If I didn’t need to worry about the health of those taking the portals with me I would just turn GRID off completely for the encounter.

We were definitely close. If we had gotten a tad more time on another raid night this week, I think we would have gotten it but we are out of time this week if we want a LK kill. This is the first week that we’ve not gotten our target HM boss down, but I have no doubts that we will be well on our way and will get it done this coming week. After reading some…I’m thinking about sending a 5th healer into the portals. Hmmmm.

On Alts – So mini-me (aka Elentari) hit 52. I didn’t really play her a ton, because I wound up playing some of my level 80 alts, which was also fun! However, I learned a very important lesson regarding LFD. There are just some zones you do not PuG. Like Suken Temple, for example. I must admit that I got into one late Friday evening…and I was a bit tired, and maybe a little cranky, which in itself might have been just fine. However, the poor tank had never done the zone before…and the first two pulls took us somewhere in the vicinity of 15 minutes. I politely bowed out. And honestly just told the group that I didn’t have the patience for the zone tonight, and that I was cranky and felt I would just make the group miserable. I felt a bit bad about it…but by the end of the zone I’m quite certain I would have been snappy and turned into one of those people that I hate in the LFD system.

I had some fun with both my shaman and my paladin in ICC. My shaman is now over 1100 haste, I’m so proud! However, I think the thing I am more proud of is a VoA 10 that I did with my shaman. Why? Well, you see we were having trouble finding tanks so I told the other healer (who also has a tank), that I might could solo heal it, but I wasn’t sure. And you know what? I sure did solo heal that sucker. Both the ice and fire guy. On my little shaman who could. The healer that I’m the least comfortable with, and it was a lot of fun and between the two bosses, I didn’t lose a single person! While that may not seem like a bit deal for some (and I never would have questioned being able to solo heal it on my druid), my shaman isn’t sporting the best gear out there!

I received a compliment on my healing from someone who never passes them out which made me feel pretty good =)

On Failing as a Moonkin – So, my progression 10 man (that runs one night a week) is now 10/12 HM. For whatever reason, Putricide is giving us fits. Although to be fair, we’ve spent maybe 3 hours on him over two raids. We’ve seen phase 3, but for some reason couldn’t get there on Saturday. Anyhow, I digress. So in my progression 10 man, we decided that I would moonkin on DBS while our paladin and priest healed it, so that I could knock the adds back, a’la our 25 man strategy.

Last week when I did it, I did OK, but I had been pretty lax about keeping up with my moonkin gear. Not snagging up off-spec pieces where perhaps I should have, and I realized that I was still sporting 2 pieces of 232 T9. I felt that I really needed to get myself together and felt a little embarrassed that I had been a little lax, and so I purchased my 2 T10 set, and made some adjustments to my gear. I need some ring and trinket upgrades…but I can finally stop using my hit trinket from Naxx 10. Although, I’m fairly certain that I’m just going to replace it with my heroic Abacus until I can get my hands on a spyglass.

Anyhow, I digress again. So I got my moonkin gear in order. And while I do good damage staring down a target dummy, I really don’t moonkin much, so felt I should get some practice in. And so I DPS’d a ToC 10…and while I wasn’t killing the meters, I did respectably well. I certainly left feeling more confident in my abilities as a moon chicken. I also did a VoA 10, with Brade’s warlock, and I managed to pass him as well. (And believe me when I tell you he’s competitive!). However, I could be doing better. So, I have decided that I am going to try to run at least one raid during the week as a moonkin, to work on improving my performance so that I am more comfortable wearing my feathers.

On Druid Changes In Cataclysm – They’ve made another announcement regarding another resto change in Cataclysm. That is to say that they will be increasing the cooldown on Wild Growth again. Really? Ugh. And the comment that was made by Ghostcrawler was terribly contradictory. He indicated that they could just make the spell so expensive that you really had to think about using it, as opposed to just utilizing it off of cooldown. Um…well, isn’t the whole reason that you are making all of these changes so that healers have to “think” more? Anyhow…

Just something else to tuck away into the “let’s see how it goes” file. Man that file is getting pretty damn full.

On Reading – I am still chugging through that JD Robb “In Death” series. I’m somewhere around book 12, I think. They are still pretty much like crack, and hard to put down, but I’m really enjoying them so that is good! I’ve put off the newest Dresden Files book, much to Brade’s chagrin, because I’ve not wanted to switch pace. However, the new Sookie book comes out here in a week or so, and I’m not quite sure if I’ll want to stop and get my Sookie fix in! Of course, if I do that, I may as well get my Dresden fix in as well. Ahhhhh! So many books, so little time!

And Now This Message Will Self Destruct! But not really! Any musings about your weekend happenings that you’d like to share?!

11 responses to “Monday Musings, Extra Random!”

I saw Valithria 10-man hard mode for the first time this weekend. We got her, but I think I put in my worst raid performance ever. I am always in the portals for 25-man (I’ve only done the 10 man encounter once or twice), and I usually do very well at it. But not this weekend. On our first hard-mode attempt, I sat and spam healed the dragon for about two minutes, waiting for her to yell about opening portals, then I asked on vent if they had spawned. Yes, two sets of portals had spawned and I completely missed them. I guess she doesn’t give you warning on hard mode. Plus, being more used to 25-man I was under the impression that the portals would spawn anywhere around her, but found out they only spawn in the front of the room. So I missed the portals a lot. On our second attempt I started paying more attention to portals spawns but then did terribly at hitting the orbs. I’d curse at them for not popping then rotate my camera to find I was a good 10 yards away from them. ><

Just one of those days I guess. I'm lucky I had a good pally to carry me.

We do Val25H with 3 portal healers. 2 Paladins + 1 Shaman. It actually doesn’t seem that beneficial to send more in: there are limited amounts of orbs, and plenty of work to do outside. Trees unfortunately do not excel in Val healing. It’s ok to not be the hero! Trees are so amazing at raid healing, and our mobility outside makes us a huge asset.

We started with 3 healers in the portals, but it did not work for us. After poking around a bit today, it seems that 5 is the most popular choice.

Don’t get me wrong, we were damn close last night. Unfortunately we do not have enough time this week to give it another go, so we will have to finish it out next week.

As for Druids in the portals, I am going to have to respectfully disagree. While we won’t outdo a good paladin, we are far from worthless in them, and are still capable of preforming impressively. Also keep in mind that people have to work with what is available on their raid team, not everyone will have the same strengths lie in the same places. =)

As for my feelings regarding today’s big announcement…I’m going to sleep on it before offering up my thoughts. Largely because I am not entirely certain how I feel just yet!

@Jurik – While I don’t mean to be argumentative, there are multiple ways to skin a cat. Just so you are aware, we have 2 paladins, 2 priests, 1 druid and 1 shaman currently on our roster.

Of those 6 full time healers, one of the two paladins really struggles with portals (we are debating doing a portal boot camp in a 10 man for him to see if we can get him squared away), regardless, he is FAR more effective tossing a beacon on the dragon and healing the tanks. I know this from experience while we were learning the encounter in normal mode.

Of the 5 healers left in our raid, we are already sending the shaman and other Holy paladin down.

Of those remaining, there is myself and two priests. And druids are far more effective than priests in the portal. That being said, we are still sending one of the two priests down as well, and having a few off spec healers stay up top and deal with the raid.

As I said earlier, we are solid portal healers, and each raid needs to play to it’s strengths. For us that means that I take the portals. For your raid, perhaps you are better served up top on your raid.

With all due respect, I disagree on what I “ought” to be doing based not only on my experience, but also based on our raid composition and the individual players in our raid. Not to mention that I already respectfully disagreed that we have no business in the portals. I also know that I’m not the only druid in a progression guild that has put up comtetitive numbers taking the portals. :)

However, I will admit to being a bit offended, and didn’t really get my branches ruffled, until your second comment, by being flat out told I’m doing it wrong, which is essentially what you did, even after I commented that we have to work with the raid make up that we are given :)

You made the assumption that I have the same tools and skill level of players to work with in my raids that you do, and then made an assessment that I feel that I’m entitled to correct and offer a more through explanation of our healing composition and where our strengths and weaknesses are to provide you with a better undestanding of where I stand with regards to assigning portal healers in my raid.

You also feel quite strongly that druids shouldn’t take the portals (which I believe you’ve been vociferous about over on EJ as well…unless there is a different Jurik posting there or I’m mis-remembering the conversation, it’s been awhile since I’ve read that far back in the thread so if I’m recalling incorrectly I do apologize!). I happen to disagree with that opinion, and I’m not alone in that disagreement. Are we “the best” for the job? No. But we are also far from the worst! And regardless of how many times you voice that it is your *opinion* that trees shouldn’t be going into the portals, I will likely tend to respectfully disagree.

Each guild will have different situations that they need to work with, and come up with solutions that work well for them, and it’s likely that most guild’s strenghts will lie in different areas, which means that their solutions may vary.

I am very happy to receive your advice, and quite honestly welcome it. However, I think it’s also important to understand that group dynamics vary, so often times advice can’t be given in such black and white terms :)

Normally I’d be happy to debate why druids are at least tied for “worst” for portal duty on this fight, but I doubt either one of us is truly interested in that discussion. Anyway, you’re reading way too much into the word ought.

I took a quick look at Monolith’s WoL records for Valithria and even on the best attempts (sort by hp healed – look for short fight durations) it didn’t seem like the dragon healers were consistently putting up the kind ehps that are typical for victories. I would check to see if suppressors are still alive during the healing phases. I also didn’t see bloodlust used for many attempts.

Of course, now with the 15% buff active, the amount of slack in the fight has increased dramatically. So maybe now you don’t really need the advice, and can make due with a paladin healing from outside instead of asking him to step up his game.

Just wanted to say I love the J. D. Robb series, too. :D Dallas is an ass-kicker of the highest degree.

And I read about your shift to moonkin with great interest. I am a kitty with a tree off-spec, but it’s beginning to look more and more like I should change my tree to moonkin for some fights (we’re a really melee-heavy group).

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